Various industry and legislatively-imposed regulations and security measures restrict and/or prohibit shipping and transporting certain articles via common carrier service providers. As a non-limiting example, in certain instances the restricted articles have been deemed dangerous, hazardous, or unsafe, thus requiring stricter scrutiny by common carrier service providers to ensure that such articles are not inadvertently passed through their carrier systems undetected. Liability exposure can oftentimes be significant, carrying civil penalties up $250-$50,000 per violation, increasable to $100,000 if injury occurs. Criminal penalties may also exist, up to $500,000 and/or five years imprisonment per violation.
Still further, at least the Federal Aviation Association (FAA) and other comparable regulatory bodies have indicated planned implementation of auditing procedures of common carrier service providers. Certain audits may involve introducing purposely prepared non-compliant hazardous material packages as a test of common carrier training and procedures. Inconsistent and/or inadvertent acceptance of such non-compliant “audit” packages would lead to further scrutiny and/or one or more penalties such as or in addition to those previously mentioned.
Thus, a need exists for a simplistic tool that ensures consistent, efficient, and accurate identification of restricted and/or prohibited items as part of processing a customer shipping request, without hindering pre-existing customer conveniences and interfaces.